Review on the fly:
#mnfringe show 11: A Revolution Highly Favorable: 1st of 5 completely different shows, bringing to life the words of people who lived thru birthing the USA 250 years ago, with a big wink toward the situations and sensibilities we're living with today; smart, funny, mind-boggling - 5 stars
Maximum Verbosity’s philip andrew bennett low has tackled an even bigger project that I anticipated when attending the first performance of “A Revolution Highly Favorable.” From the information available pre-show, I had gotten it into my head that all he was doing was performing excerpts from the writings of American Revolutionary War combat medic, historian and prisoner of war David Ramsay, and that Ramsay’s records somehow covered the whole expanse of time that low was engaging with, from prior to the first shots of the war being fired through the war and up to the creation of the nation’s new government.
“No nation can adore more than one man at a time.”
But I should have known that this would be too simple a task for a research enthusiast such as low. Ramsay’s writings were being adapted here for the first time, but there were also a great many OTHER sources from the late 18th century that the writer/performer was incorporating into this historical tapestry. Multiple perspectives from the time, alternating with low’s own writing, synthesizing the history and setting up the next set of reference points for the writings of the period.
“The people were provoked beyond endurance.”
Given the current goings on in the United States, presentations of history can land a bit differently in a new context. For instance, the summary of the content of the first performance, which I attended was as follows:
“When a distant autocrat imposes a series of crippling tariffs, a peaceful protest movement is met with overwhelming force.”
So… yeah, there’s that.
The artist here is reminding us that where we are in some ways isn’t all that much different from where we were 250 years ago. We made it this far. We’ll keep going. But being reminded of the past is helpful. At times, emotion crept into his voice as if he were talking bout something like the occupation that happened here several months ago, rather than about something that was hundreds of years in the past. Though some of the language can be a bit old-fashioned, low has assembled and performs it in a way that it’s always easily understandable. And low’s own narrative sections, setting the larger context in which these people penned their thoughts, are a helpful framing device for aiding that understanding.
“If she is but just, and we are but free…”
This is a different kind of storytelling production for Maximum Verbosity, but it still fits neatly into their mission, a theater company history steeped in the legends of old was bound to get around to our own American legends eventually. It’s good to have this kind of adult examination of American mythology, seeing it more clearly as actual history and not the gauzy overview we got from history classes in grade school.
“A perfect calm in the political world is not long to be expected.”
All of which makes this show sound very “serious” - but the founding citizens of the new country, in addition to often being well-spoken, also did have a sense of humor, and satire, in their writings, including poems and song lyrics. They also weren’t above being a bit petty or spicy when the occasion called for it, and low takes full advantage of these opportunities in his source material. So there’s amusement to be had here as well, it’s not a dry history lesson.
“Reason alone has never accomplished anything.”
After all these years, it’s still fun for me to just be in a room and watch phillip andrew bennett low wrangle with reams of language, crafting it into a larger narrative - and here it’s a five-part narrative of the founding of the United States of America, with useful perspective on the state of the country today by comparison. philip doesn’t hit you over the head with it. He just has to present the material for you to think to yourself, “well, that sounds familiar.” Each performance of “A Revolution Highly Favorable” is its own self-contained thing, so you can drop in anywhere in the run and get something out of it. No homework necessary, he’s done that for you already.
5 Stars - Very Highly Recommended
You can find reviews of other shows in these links to my listings of 5 and 4.5 Star Shows (VERY Highly Recommended) and 4 and 3.5 Star Shows (Highly Recommended). Here's a link to a list of all the coverage of returning favorite artists from past pre-Fringe Top 20 lists of mine that are part of this year's Minnesota Fringe Festival. And here's links to the 2026 versions of my pre-Fringe Top 10 list and Top 11 through 20 for the 2026 festival.
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